Dec 13-18

Students at BMC were not only encouraged to experiment with their materials, but to DOCUMENT their explorations. And documenting was not something performed as an act of preservation or research, but an integral part of the creative, making process itself. Often something will “happen” as you manipulate materials that isn’t necessarily something that can be made permanent: perhaps wetness is integral to what is happening on the page that is exciting. Or perhaps the materials you are using are frail or unsaveable. Sometimes it’s more about the way the light hits the gathered assemblage of objects – a moment that will be gone once the light changes. 

At BMC, the tools available to them for documenting were 35mm cameras. (So there was also a whole other layer to the creative process: developing film and making prints!) Images captured could be projected onto the wall or a screen with slide projectors. Some moment caught on camera of a dancer mid-leap, of materials transformed by light and shadow, of some fleeting moment of Nature observed in their surroundings…. all these could become the background of another piece of art – on the page – or in a live performance. Images might be used by the person who took the picture or by other artists.

The possibilities for COLLABORATION were endless: between materials, between materials and story, between people creating something that would never be possible without creative co-conspirators!

Over the next 6 days we will learn about artists at BMC, and beyond, who explored (and some still exploring) the stories and moments happening around and within them with cameras, fabric, yarn, paper, and more. How does capturing the steps in the creative process become art all on its own?